Future Working: Smart Buildings and Shared office Space will be Widespread by 2030

New ways of working and information technology, the panel, convened by Turner & Townsend, predicted would have a significant impact on buildings and how they are utilised in the coming years. With the advent of smart cities and the internet of things, Stephen Wild of MediaCityUK said that there will be: “a fundamental change in everything we do”, whilst Chris Reay of Allied London indicated that: “around 25 per cent of commercial office space will be co-working space. The market is shifting massively.”

In the report ‘Smart working: Smart Buildings and the Future of Work’ PDF, Unwork.com’s Owen King agrees with this assessment noting that: “the way buildings are used by occupiers is being transformed as competitive pressures and new ways of working create demands for different types of space. Increasingly, companies are looking to locate to buildings that are flexible and adaptive. Flexible locations, such as co-working spaces and serviced offices, are becoming an increasingly important part of real estate strategies.”

Emerging technologies are thus profoundly changing the way buildings are designed built and operated. So what are the advantages? Owen King outlines 8 beneficial outcomes that might be expected:

Actionable insight: A great deal of operations data is generated, allowing building managers to draw insight regarding performance.

Sustainable: similarly, energy efficiency indicators can be monitored against targets.

Flexible: Smart buildings are more easily reconfigured allowing for more flexible models of work.

Experiential: Users have greater control and can tailor to their preference.

Healthy: Tech can facilitate and measure wellbeing.

Productive: Smart buildings facilitate the more efficient use of space.

Collaborative: advanced use of data and analytics can encourage interactions knowledge sharing and improved business performance.

Effective: Smart buildings meet the needs of users and transform a company’s estate into an enabler of growth.